The Internet's core bandwidth continues to double every year. Some of this additional bandwidth is consumed as more and more users access the Internet. Other additional bandwidth is consumed as existing users increase their use of the Internet. This increase of Internet use translates into an increase in traffic directed to and from World Wide Web (WWW) servers and other Internet servers.
Replacing a WWW server with a WWW server of twice the capacity is a costly undertaking. Adding additional WWW servers is less costly but generally requires a distribution mechanism to spread the workload so that each virtual server performs work proportional to its capacity and the number of servers available to the traffic management device that is performing the distribution mechanism. As a result, a traffic management device may be required to store state information about connections and look at higher levels to maintain connections between servers and users.
This requirement for more sophisticated traffic management requires more processing. With a sufficient rate of requests, eventually a traffic management device may not be able to process traffic in a timely manner. Therefore, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.